“As Co-Publishers, we listened to our fans and to our partners in the retail community who told us that a $3.99 price point for 32 pages was too expensive. Fans were becoming increasingly reluctant to sample new titles and long term fans were beginning to abandon titles and characters that they’d collected for years.” said Dan DiDio, DC Comics Co-Publisher. “We needed a progressive pricing strategy that supports our existing business model and, more importantly, allows this creative industry to thrive for years to come.[“]

Boldfaced emphasis added by me.

This is a very interesting move.

Averse to the abattoirs printed comic books are sold in, I have no idea how long the $3.99 price has been in effect.

Did DC Comics simply drop the price to parity with their digital comics?

If digital comics are $2.99 a pop, DC Comics will be waiting some time after I finally have an iPad to get me as a customer. I think digital comics should be a buck a pop. Let those who want the souvenir of paper pay more for that fetishistic premium.

The lesson here, however, is that DC Comics listened to its readers. They said the prices were too high.

How many times must that be said to the Big 5 and their price-fixing Trust of the Agency Model for eBooks? Will they see bleak sales down the road and fool themselves by saying, “Well, people just aren’t reading anymore?” Wake up!

Random House is so far not offering its books on Apple’s iPad because Dohle said he was not sure about Apple’s model which forces publishers to determine the end-consumer price, unlike for printed books which are priced by retailers.

“We’ve got to think very hard about whether we want this drastic change in our business model,” he said. “The question is if publishers know how to find the right retail price… This hasn’t been our job in the past.”

Um, wut?

Then how do those prices get on all of those Random House printed books? Is it pixie dust or pricing unicorns? Or are the prices that Random House puts there just, what, imaginary to begin with?

Hey, Dohle, wanna set a precedent? Why not just put You Pick The Price buttons on all your eBooks? Go on, be the Priceline of publishing. You’ll teach the other Big 5 something they’ll never forget.